8mm Forum: Bravermans Condensed Cream of beatles Super 8 sound GROOOVY!

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on May 19, 2017, 12:05 PM:

OK, I love the odd rarity, and when it comes to the odd Beatles release on super 8 ... even better.

Well, they don't get much rarer than this one. A little history on this title.

Charles Braverman was obviously a fond lover of the Beatles. He was a successful TV show producer as well and has won many an award, but his main focus was on documentary film-making. He self produced ann animated a short documentary film "Condensed Cream of Beatles" which consisted of very short clips of the Beatles throughout thier entire career as a band, with varying lengths of thier songs, (none of them complete, but thats OK, we know them all), even incorporating some of the Beatles solo material as well. Though websites state the film to be 12 minutes long, it's closer to about 15 minutes long, (as, while it doesn'
t completely fill a 400ft reel, it mostly fill it). This little gem is a color film and Braverman, crazy fellow that he was, even made an animated countdown leader (which ends, right the number three with a one or two frame with the word "pop" on it!)

This film was first seen on a Reraldo Rivera TV show in 1972, and was later distributed on 16MM by Pyramid films and it's because of Pyramid films that we have this wonderful gem on super 8, (for those that don't remember, Pyramid films was also responsible for the delightful "Mole" cartoons, among some other releases).

Fortunately, Pyramid Films even kept on the original Braverman "Countdown Leader" but sadly, this release never made it onto low fade film stock, (at least Ive never seen one),but the copy that I have is thankfully, holding up rather well over all this time, only a very slight fade.

Though this film has the distinction of being the first, so to speak, documentary on the Beatles, it really is more like a extra long music video but believe me, you won't be disappointed!
It's amazing that he was able to pull this off in the first place!

To this very day, this has never been released on anything, (legally) on VHS, DVD or bluray, so the only way that you can enjoy this film is if you find the 16MM or this very rare super 8 sound color copy!

Here is a clip from this film, that was on youtube ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ1UpkV_CL4

Thank you very much Pyramid films ... seek this out for yourself and, as always ...

LONG LIVE SUPER 8!

Posted by David Hardy (Member # 4628) on June 02, 2017, 12:48 PM:

Osi
Thanks for this post and the link.
A very interesting piece of Fab Four memorabilia on film.

Posted by Jorma Julku (Member # 6015) on September 15, 2017, 06:48 PM:

Thanks Osi!
You surely seem to be a film god!
It's rewarding to find interesting things in this forum and
about Beatles.

Posted by Den Brown (Member # 819) on September 16, 2017, 03:37 PM:

Good film but I prefer WORLD OF 68 partially cut to the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 1183) on September 16, 2017, 04:05 PM:

> West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band

I think the longest that I ever hunted for a legitimate CD was for their release with their song, The Smell Of Incense. A blast from the past.

As too Charles Braverman, he also made a 16mm film titled Televisionland, which like the Beatles short mentioned above, is made up of clips from American TV shows, from the earliest days up through the late 1960's. There are 2 version of it. Apparently, when Pyramid Films picked it up for distribution, they had problems clearing the rights for some of the clips, so he made an alternate version removing the offending clips and adding others not in the old version.

Posted by William Olson (Member # 2083) on September 23, 2017, 09:03 AM:

A number of years ago, I ran a duplication department in a video equipment business. One day, a customer brought in a reel of 16mm film to be transferred to DVD. Lo and behold, it was "Cream of Beatles". Naturally, I made a copy for myself.

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